Surrender
by Synferi
Summary: This is a quick sketch of a story for a contest. Might continue, might fill it out. Still not as long as they wanted it-just slight of 2500 words but I was in a hurry!


This story is written for the Secrets and Lies one-shot contest for RobertPattinsonLover4Ever

"My lady…,"

Bella turned, startled to find Edward in her rooms so late at night and on the eve of battle no less!

She openly glared at the man as he stalked towards her. She didn't fail to notice how prideful his steps were; as if she'd swoon at his saunter, at the way his lush lips curved into a half smile…at the—she narrowed her eyes and turned back towards her mirror where she was seated braiding her long waves.

"Why do you bother me so Edward, is it not sad enough I'll be facing eternity with you after the war? That is, if we claim victory."

She watched him stop just behind her, his body so close she could feel the heat emanating from his strength. He rested his naked, rough hands on her bared shoulders and squeezed just enough that she'd meet his tawny eyes in the mirror.

"Ed—," she started, shrugging in an attempt to shake him off, but he merely held her still.

"Bella, why must you constantly refuse me?"

"We don't love each other Edward." He pondered her words for moments before sitting down beside her, his legs stretching off the bench so that he was nearly sitting face to face with her but side by side all the same.

"Who's to say my feelings for you aren't love?"

"Who's to say they are?"

Edward retrieved the loose braid she'd let fall without finishing it and continued to braid it. The man had had 2 sisters and had always been adept in the fixings of a woman's hair.

She let him finish.

They sat in silence for a long time; neither looking at one another. Finally, he sighed.

"Edward, say what you must," she finally insisted.

She sighed too, but with a relaxed air.

"Just because you've managed to sneak into my room doesn't mean you're going to be sweet talking your way into my britches today, betrothed or not, we are doing nothing until I absolutely must and for your inform—," his deep chuckle irrupted into a lovely laugh as he put a large hand over her pretty lips.

"If I wanted to sleep with you, I would have knocked you silly you for goodness sakes and then I would have had my way with you!" his chest rumbled with his laughter for a few more moments before he moved his hands to frame her delicate features, his cold skin a refuge from the heat of the room.

"I came to be serious for once, my lady, give me a chance."

She didn't reply, but he knew he'd captured her attention. It was hard not to catch a lady's attention, what with his pure strength, deep copper hair and golden eyes, ruggedly smooth face and a smirk to die for. But even he knew his looks stood nowhere with Bella. He figured that was why he liked her so much.

"Bella," she was everything he'd wanted in a woman. She was so independent and strong willed.

She was beautiful in all the classical senses one could imagine from hair almost black as the night that cascaded down her back in calm waves. Her eyes; the softest brown were surrounded by thick black lashes that were the loveliest he'd ever seen. Her nose held a slight upwards point and her lips were thick, the top being slightly bigger than the bottom gave her a unique quality that was very charming. Her skin cast a very pale shade, not as pale as himself, but like a perfect lily.

Edward could very much love this woman, if she only let him. But alas; Edward's fists tightened at the thought of her friend Jacob, the man who single-handedly took her away from him in all the subtle ways one might imagine.

For years she'd yearned for the wolf, Jacob, and for years she thought no one would notice. And when she finally had him, it'd all been for naught. Edward had been angry that her virtue had been taken by…by a shifter and for years he'd overcome the thought of her tainted body; tainted with an evil he could not accept with his own faith and beliefs. And so for a while he had busied himself with other women to distract him but he always returned to her.

When the arrangement had been made, that Edward and Bella were to wed—bringing their old families together he had spat with outrage. She'd been tainted by a mongrel, after all.

He played like he'd been angry, but he'd been gleeful at the prospect. To show her that she was meant for him and no one else, to rectify the wrong that had in rumor been shed unto her porcelain body.

But in one night she'd poured out her heart to him. She'd never slept with Jacob, but the man had hurt her all the same. Edward hated Jacob.

Bella seemed to hate Edward after her admissions to him. He never understood. It was good that they open up to one another—were they not destined to be married after all?

And ever since, she'd held something against him that he could not understand; did she fear he'd hurt her like Jacob had?

As far as he knew, she was still innocent. Though rumor had it that Bella toyed with all the young handsome men, and in words he knew it to be true the way she teased them mercilessly.

Edward had spent the past 50 years, his vampiric genes keeping his body as handsome as a man in his mid-twenties—freshly shaven face, beautifully sculpted facial structure and heavy brows. He had watched the young girl grow from child to a very fine sixteen year old, the age the elders had decided to immortalize her in. Her transformation had had them all worried—she'd been ill for months and even human blood wasn't helping. They had all fear for the worst, but she'd pulled through. Her avoidance of human blood altogether had been a surprise for them all; she was beautiful.

Bella watched silently all of the emotions crossing the handsome man's face. He seemed to have forgotten where he was because whilst he was staring right at her, he saw her not. She was sure if she undressed before his eyes he would notice nothing.

Her flirty lips curved into a grin that many a man at the bars knew and loved.

She reached down and began untying the white ribbon holding her nightgown together at her throat. He still gazed through her.

She pulled the ribbons through their holes one by one until they ended at her ribcage and she slipped her shoulders from the white lace still grasping the loose material to her pale and hefty bosom.

She pulled her dark braids over one shoulder and looked down at the flesh she'd just exposed to the one man who it would belong to if they stayed alive after this war—a war between wolf and vampire.

Bella watched Edward's eyes from under her thick lashes.

Slowly and almost unnoticeably, his eyes began to focus on her and then he was standing and turning away.

She wasn't sure if she should laugh or be worried.

"Ed—," she began tentatively, but then without a word he'd turned back to her and stalking to her with all the glory of an angry God. She almost screamed when he grabbed her bared shoulders and pulled her up harshly to meet him. She gasped when his lips crashed into hers and unexpectedly for both of them; she released her iron hold of her gown to wrap her pale arms around his neck and shoulders.

She returned his kiss with all the interest he'd imagined she'd saved for Jacob. He didn't care.

Edward wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up so that he needn't lean down to meet her delicious mouth. She felt her feet dangling several inches from the floor and held onto his shoulders much tighter.

"Bella, let me love you—," he breathed against her. She moaned against his lips as he carefully lowered her back to the wooden floor.

"Edward," she shook her head to clear it as she released her hold on him, "It's not that simple, I have feelings for someone else…I can't," he dropped his arms to his sides as he looked down at her.

"Bella, you belong with no one else. The elders won't even allow it anyhow, why do you bother to look elsewhere? I've been here, I am here; do you have no affection for me?"

Bella had forgotten about her night dress and the way the material draped down her body nearly uncovering everything to dark eyes that weren't even interested in it at the moment.

Bella gaped openly at him.

"Of course I do, Ed, but it's so confusing. You and I are being forced to be together; don't you know how unnatural that is for love?"

"The Elders have been doing this for centuries, Bella, how can you use that as an excuse?

He turned away running a hand through his thick, glossy hair. He turned and stocked away before stocking back to her. Her eyes were now turned to the floor.

He silently lifted her chin with his right hand as gently as he could as his other hand went to rest on her bare shoulder, their cold flesh seemed to warm against the other's.

"What is love, Bella? What is love if you cannot be happy doing it? Perhaps your affection for this other," whom he supposed was still Jacob, "is naught but mere affection for a man of good breeding and wiles. Am I not a man of good breeding and charm?"

"Edward, a charmer?" he smiled with her.

"Do I not charm you, Bella?" he asked her huskily. His gold eyes meeting her darker ones with eagerness fit for a thirsty man at the edge of a clear lake.

"Edward, do you love me?"

Edward was taken aback by so straightforward a question. So many years they've bounced around each other with quarrels and wit avoiding any sense of feelings towards one another. It was new that she should not dodge with some other wording.

"Bella, I have only dreamt and looked to you in all my years. Even while you were but a child, I have been taken by you, Bella. When I think of war and the possibilities of death, my thoughts only wander back to you and what will become of you should I not remain a proper suitor. If when I wake and when I lay to rest you are the first and final thought on my mind…is that not love?"

Bella's eyes seemed to brim a little with tears and she looked down again; he raised her chin again, this time moving that hand to caress her cheek after she met his eyes again.

"Would you take me tonight, Edward?"

"If you would but let me claim you as my own, my love."

"And if I still thought of another afterwards?"

"Only because I know that if I bed you once, Bella, I know you won't be able to think of another in any form of the matter." He smirked as she blushed.

"You seem so certain of yourself, my Lord."

"That is only because I am to be paired with the most enticing woman to have ever graced the world and every man will be jealous enough to hate me and every woman jealous enough to poison themselves that they had not been you."

She almost laughed at the way he complimented himself in the same sentence.

Instead, she merely smiled up at him.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Would you comb my hair…before we, you…I—," he smiled and sat her down on the bench before the mirror. She watched him carefully as he unbraided her hair and took a loose toothed come through the silky waves.

"Your hair is like the sea before it reaches the beach. Soft but wild; elegant."

She blushed and looked down at her hands as he smoothed her long hair down her back.

When finally he set the comb down, she stood and walked around the bench, grabbing his hand and leading him to her bed.

Turning to him just before the foot of the large, crimson covered bed, she reached up to pull the rest of her gown from her pale body. Instead, his large hands followed her and did it for her.

He nearly choked at the flawlessness of it. Bella was a soft beauty—a beauty that rang deep in his soul.

He kissed her.

Bella considered the situation as his lips melted against hers. She thought of this love as something new and exciting, but she knew her heart still longed for the shifter, Jacob. To her this love she shared with Edward was as illicit to her well being as it would've been if she'd raced off, a vampire, to meet with a wolf—their arch enemies whom they'd be fighting against not hours from now.

She sighed and he took it in as a loving sound, a sound of complete surrender.


End file.
